I don't think I commented on this at the time. Crises elsewhere have overshadowed our withdrawal from Libya. Goodbye and thanks for all the fish:
At the request of the Department of State, the U.S. military assisted in the relocation of personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya on Saturday, July 26.
All embassy personnel were relocated, including the Marine security guards who were providing security at the embassy and during the movement.
The embassy staff was driven in vehicles to Tunisia.
During movement, F-16's, ISR assets and an Airborne Response Force with MV-22 Ospreys provided security.
The mission was conducted without incident, and the entire operation lasted approximately five hours.
America's leading-from-behind moment is apparently at an end.
Just why would we leave?
An Islamist armed group carried out a videotaped execution of an Egyptian man in a football stadium in Libya, in what Amnesty said Friday highlighted the country's descent into lawlessness.
Even the Libyans have decided Tripoli isn't very safe:
The newly elected (and much more anti-Islamic terrorist) parliament is now operating in Tobruk, far away from the violence in the two largest cities; Tripoli (the capital and 1,600 kilometers west of Tobruk) and Benghazi (in the east and long dominated by Islamic terrorist groups.) Parliament has condemned the militias, especially the Islamic terrorist ones and called for NATO (or any international body, like the UN) to come back and help impose peace. The parliament has singled out Islamic terrorist groups Fajr Libya (based in Misrata as the Misrata Union of Revolutionaries) and Ansar al Sharia (based in Benghazi) as most responsible for the current violence.
Keeping American troops out of Libya hasn't had any of the calming effect that the Left claimed.
What's really kind of funny is the lesson that President Obama learned from the war he launched:
Obama recently told New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that he learned an important lesson from the U.S.-led intervention in Libya when, after the death of Moammar Gaddafi, the United States and allies didn’t do more to rebuild the North African country, which is engulfed in an extremist uprising.
Now when he considers intervention, he always asks, “Do we have an answer [for] the day after?” he said.
Huh. I thought that the Left learned that lesson from Iraq? Amazingly enough, President Obama even assumed that by the force of his aura and stature that this liberal lesson of Iraq (which isn't a true charge, in any case) did not apply to him!
I assumed that since the Libya War was the Left's war for Responsibility to Protect that the post-war plan for Libya would be awesome.
